Illinois Fighting Illini vs Purdue Boilermakers Prediction, Odds and Picks for Saturday, 10/04/25

The Illinois Fighting Illini are coming off one of the weirdest two-week stretches of the 2025 college football season, following a 63-10 blowout loss against Indiana with an upset win over USC. Now, taking on Purdue, these squads share a similar opponent as the Boilermakers lost by 16 at home against the Trojans. While the Fighting Illini seem to be a bit of a wildcard, we know this Purdue squad has struggled in the rushing department, both on offense and on defense. Purdue ranks 86th in total rush defense and 94th in success rate defending the run. Furthermore, the Boilermakers have been held under 100 rushing yards in all 3 games against FBS opponents and rank 113th in rushing success rate offensively. 

On the other side of things, Illinois has been efficient in the run game, ranking 26th in rushing success rate. The Boilermakers’ secondary has been suspect thus far, and if QB Luke Altmyer is on his game it could open up all sorts of possibilities for the Illinois offense. Altmyer has an 11-0 TD:INT ratio while Purdue QB Ryan Browne has already thrown 5. The Notre Dame offense had a field day against the Boilermakers, and I expect a similar result in this one. I’ll take Illinois to cover on the road.

Illinois vs Purdue prediction: Illinois -9.5 (-110) available at time of publishing. Playable at that number or better.